


The Bad Sleep Well - 1- Any Better

by sharkcar



Series: The Bad Sleep Well [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Force Bond (Star Wars), Space Pirates, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 23:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18486919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkcar/pseuds/sharkcar
Summary: An imagining of the lives of clones after the Clone Wars. Just some simple men, making their ways in the universe, in all their tragicomic glory.





	1. In His Place

**Author's Note:**

> I've been planning on doing something like this for a few years. It finally felt like I could write something last year when Rebels ended. Thinking the story of the clones was pretty done, since they probably wouldn't survive to other eras. So as they left it, there was a lot of room to imagine. Then they go and revive Clone Wars, so I don't know if any of this will make sense in a few months. But there's always edits.

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…  
  
Ended, the Clone War had. And in such a terrible way that it seemed almost nobody survived it all in one piece. Paying an especially heavy price were the JANGO FETT CLONES, who were not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Galactic Constitution, and could therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provided for and secured to citizens of the Empire. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been created by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.  
  
Atollon- Sixteen Years after Order 66  
  
Rex was tidying up his room on the Liberator. It was no more than a tiny cabin with one window. But it was private. That was all Rex had asked from the Rebellion was to have a space that was his alone. It was a small dignity. He thought he’d at least earned that after all this time. The last few weeks, when Rex was stationed at Chopper base getting it set up, he slept on a cot like everyone else. He wasn’t soft, he wanted no special treatment. A lot of the young people made fun of how he snored. Rex wished they wouldn’t laugh about it so much. He wasn’t even thirty standard years and they called him names like ‘Grandpa’. It made him feel old. He never said to anyone that it bothered him, though. He had taken to hiding for naps in a little shack that they’d built to store scrap materials and old parts, just so nobody commented on the poor tired geezer.  
  
But the Liberator had arrived at base at last, so Rex had his own little place again. First thing, he set up his little still that he had invented to recycle food waste into alcohol. The yield wasn’t high, but it was always enough for Rex personally, as well as Fenn Rau when Rex chose to share. That was pretty often. Most of the kids in the Rebellion didn’t drink. Half of them probably weren’t considered old enough. Back on Kamino, most of Rex’s brothers experimented with intoxicants before they had aged enough years to make a handful of fingers. It was just some way to break up the monotony of life in the facility. Then the war made drinking habitual, as a group of ten year old clones in thirty year olds’ bodies were offered alcohol as a socially acceptable vice to deal with their stresses. The effects had been devastating.  
  
Rex looked around the room and tried to tell what he could about its inhabitant. It was clean. But there was not much else to tell, he had to admit. Rex scolded himself. He didn’t want to seem pathetic. He was expecting a visitor.  
  
Ahsoka was back at the base from one of her forays into the wider galaxy. Rex was so excited to see her, he could hardly stand it. So it hurt like a punch in the chest when she said she was going straight back out with Ezra and Kanan on some Jedi mission.  
  
Rex never expected to be asked to go with Ahsoka on Jedi things. Rex wasn’t Force sensitive, he could never be what they were, even with a lifetime of training. And though Rex had been created to assist Jedi, in the state he was in, he was sure he would be more of a liability than a help to Ahsoka in a fight. That’s what he’d tried to tell Kanan and Ezra when they’d asked him to join the Rebellion. He didn’t think he’d be of much use. But in the end, it was Ahsoka, who had asked him, so, like a fool, he followed.  
  
Rex and Ahsoka would run into each other now and again, but their duties in the Rebellion didn’t really overlap. Ahsoka said she couldn’t tell him most of the details of her personal missions. It would probably be dangerous for him to know the kinds of things she faced. It sort of hurt Rex’s feelings, anyway, that she didn’t tell him. As if he’d ever betray her confidence, even under torture. General Skywalker used to tell him everything, Jedi protocols be damned. Skywalker was the first person Rex had met in the outside universe who’d treated him like an equal.  
  
Even in secular matters in the Rebellion, Rex never had much intelligence worth knowing. He hadn’t been able to work his way up the chain of command to be in the confidence of the leaders who gave Ahsoka instructions. The highest he rated was meetings within his own cell, Commander Sato or Captain Syndulla. Mostly people just made plans and gave orders rather than listen or answer his questions. Rex, for his part, diligently obeyed, refusing to assume the old stereotype that all natural borns didn’t trust clones. He grumbled to himself sometimes about how he thought he could be more useful, but his specific place in the hierarchy wasn’t worth fighting about. Discord among the ranks lost more than a few battles, so Kenobi used to say. Rex had seen it firsthand that that was true.  
  
Rex opened the valve on the still and filled a ceramic bottle with the amber liquor.  
  
Ahsoka used the Force to press the door panel, evidently. When it slid open her hands were both occupied carrying a small crate. “Thanks for storing this for me.”  
  
She was giving up her personal room on the Liberator while she was away. She never used it anyway, she preferred to sleep outside.  
  
Rex opened a wall drawer and took out his kit cup and the mug Gregor’d given him.  
  
Ahsoka looked around at the room and sat in the one chair, “Rex, I’m sorry I’ve been busy. I know I kept saying we’d get together.”  
  
Rex hadn’t acted hurt. She must have been reading his feelings again. All those years since the war ended, Rex had forgotten what it was like, being figuratively blind among people who could see. He was embarrassed that he had been so easy to read.  
  
“It’s alright. I’ve been busy, too,” Rex tried to keep it positive, “Today I organized some of the new recruits into teams and had them run equipment drills like we used to. It’s fun, getting these kids in shape, making real soldiers out of them,” Rex said.  
  
“I knew you’d be great at this. You’re a wonderful teacher,” she patted him on the shoulder.  
  
Rex reminded himself that this Rebellion was in part Ahsoka’s creation. She’d grown up so much. Rex hoped she couldn’t tell too easily how much he wanted it to succeed. “They’re so idealistic. Much more than we were. Everyone knows exactly why they’re fighting and really believes in what they’re doing,” Rex looked up to see Ahsoka with a look on her face. Her expression was one of gratitude.  
  
Rex suddenly felt a warmth in his chest. He looked down quickly, “Uh…yeah. Well…every bit of training counts.”  
  
“So what else have you been up to?” she asked.  
  
Rex didn’t think her interest sounded disingenuous, so he opened up a bit, “Uh…You know…fixing up some of the old junk lying around. I was thinking of rigging up a barbecue pit so we could have hot meals for once. Everyone complains about the packaged rations. But fresh ingredients are hard to come by. The only people who like eating the native species are me and Zeb and even we have to admit they aren’t that appetizing, we’re just hungry.”  
  
Ahsoka smiled broadly, “Well, you and Anakin would eat the worst stuff. Then put some hotsauce on it so you had no nerve endings left.”  
  
“Better than claiming you were good at fasting then getting all cranky from low blood sugar,” Rex laughed involuntarily, thinking about General Kenobi on Tiprin.  
  
“By Onderon he was eating bugs with everyone else. But at least he and I cooked ours. You and Anakin didn’t have to eat them live.”  
  
“Made it more of a sensory experience,” Rex chuckled and shook his head. He loved remembering them all that way.  
  
Ahsoka leaned back in the chair and tapped the crate twice with her heel. “Rex, this box is all I have in the universe, but truthfully, I’m probably never going to use any of it again, it’s just sentimental. So feel free to keep what you want, I’ll never ask for it back.”  
  
“Sir, yes, sir,” Rex saluted. He didn’t know what he’d do with it. He knew the itinerant lifestyle. He barely ever had more than what he could carry on his person.  
  
“You’re hard to shop for, but I put in a thank you basket of those little soaps you like.” Ahsoka opened the lid to show him.  
  
Rex scratched the back of his head, “That’s thoughtful. Hey, were you able to find any information on that name I gave you, the Imperial prisoner?”  
  
“Well, I asked Ezra how he found out about his parents…” Ahsoka’s tone was not positive.  
  
Rex put up a palm, “Let me guess, the Force is involved.”  
  
“He waved his hand over a list of billions of names and came to a person who had been with them. Then he went on a quest….as one does,” Ahsoka looked serious, but her eyes were laughing. She knew how it sounded. “Followed a tooka around or something.”  
  
“Hehe. I love animals, any chance you can help me find a quest?” Rex was only half joking.  
  
“It’s not like we can just lead you like we’re anooba with a scent,” Ahsoka shook her head. “Chances are, I wouldn’t recognize it if I sensed anything relevant to you.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Jedi stuff’s for Jedi stuff,” Rex shrugged.  
  
Ahsoka raised her eyebrows like Rex knew she did when she sensed something. At least her abilities made it easier to communicate things he’d be too emotional to say.  
  
Ahsoka answered, “I think, you find what you need when you’re meant to. Just wait for the signs. Trust what your heart tells you.”  
  
“That doesn’t sound like a Jedi thing to say,” Rex filled the two cups.  
  
“I’m no Jedi,” she reminded him. She looked so grown up.  
  
“You know how weird this is, we have known each other for eighteen years and we have never had a drink together,” Rex handed her the cup and sat with his own on the bed.  
  
“Well, most of the time that we worked together, I was just a kid,” Ahsoka reminded him. Rex missed the kid Ahsoka because she didn’t make him feel like such an old man.  
  
Rex and Ahsoka went through a few rounds of shots and had moved on to wine chasers. Their conversation turned to nostalgia. They were talking about their friend Senator Amidala for the first time since she died.  
  
“She really thought I deserved to be happy someday,” Rex looked down and shook his head slightly at his tin kit cup. He thought he’d seen a smudge on the inside, but he had lost it, so he swirled the beverage searching for it again.  
  
“Me too,” Ahsoka chuckled. Then she surprised him, “Were you ever happy?”  
  
Rex was unused to people being curious about him, “A little while. Once. For just a little bit, I had everything I wanted. Great job, great friends, great girl. It all went wrong, but I’m really glad I did it. Knowing what it felt like was worth it. Experience, you know. You?”  
  
“I don’t think so. Maybe now, doing what I was meant to. I love my work and my friends. I just don’t think I’m meant for love,” Ahsoka sarcastically stressed the last word. She sounded so sure of herself. Rex envied that a bit.  
  
“Really? I thought that you had some romances.” He poured her some wine, “What about that guy on Onderon.”  
  
“No, an attraction, but nothing real. Jedi were not permitted attachments,” she gulped it. This obviously wasn’t the first time she’d had a drink.  
  
“General Skywalker was in a relationship,” this was the first time Rex had mentioned the General to Ahsoka since he’d come to the Rebellion.  
  
He thought he detected a little pain in her expression.  
  
“Anakin never deprived himself of any relationship he wanted, regardless of who he was hurting. Sometimes I feel like I was his work wife. We were as connected as he and Padme were, but as a Force bond. Like with him and Padme, it was pretty serious,” Ahsoka seemed surprisingly adept at explaining emotional complexities. Rex was once again envious of her.  
  
Rex didn’t know that side of General Skywalker, what she was describing. “I don’t know much about how Force bonds work, for us non-Force sensitives those are kind of one way streets. We connected enough that if I wanted him to, Skywalker could tell what I was thinking, but I couldn’t hear him back.”  
  
She nodded. “Well, it’s like that but we could both communicate with each other. I shared parts of his mind that were hidden from other people. He was the reason I came to know the Dark Side.”  
  
“That’s why you can’t be a Jedi? Because you use both light and dark?” Rex had actually been schooled in the nature of the Force when he and Skywalker started working together. He genuinely believed in it, although he was not a Force sensitive himself. He had faith in Skywalker’s word.  
  
“Yeah, well, more like I don’t hold myself exclusively to one side or the other. It’s my choice, but Anakin was the one that first taught me about using the Dark Side. Using my emotions, and not the Jedi Code, to make decisions,” Ahsoka explained.  
  
“But General Skywalker was always like that and he was the greatest Jedi there was,” Rex protested.  
  
“He was powerful with the Force, he identified himself as a Jedi, but the Dark Side had always been with him. He was so powerful that the Dark Side didn’t limit his ability to wield the light the way it would for Jedi. He just kept it under control most of the time, but he was not afraid to use the dark.” This was the most Ahsoka had ever told him. Rex didn’t know why, but it felt like a warning.  
  
“So he wasn’t a Jedi?” Rex asked.  
  
“He was, as far as he knew. And he wasn’t. I knew that before he did. I knew he wasn’t going to stay blind to it forever and that I would never be a Jedi since I had already changed. When the time came, I got out of the Order while I could. It was crumbling apart anyway. I stand by my decision. If I’d decided differently, I would have been gunned down in the purge,” Ahsoka wasn’t contrite, like how Rex felt all the time those days. He envied her once again, he constantly had survivors’ guilt.  
  
“By my boys, the 501st, possibly,” Rex furrowed his brow. Rex’s outfit, the 501st had been led into the Jedi Temple to massacre every Jedi, of all ages. There had been thousands. Overnight, Rex’s pride and life’s work became a symbol of tyranny and mass murder.  
  
“Well, Rex. It looks like we were the lucky ones,” Ahsoka took a drink.  
  
Rex preferred her way of looking at it. “Nobody else saw it coming,” he took a drink.  
  
Ahsoka squinted slightly, “Fives did.”  
  
“How do you know that?” Rex looked up at her.  
  
“Force bond,” she shrugged.  
  
“Right. You guys trained together. Hey, did…um…you two ever…?”  
  
“Inappropriate question,” she scowled at him.  
  
“Sorry,” Rex hadn’t thought it would matter after all those years.  
  
She laughed a little at the thought, apparently she wasn’t really offended, “No. I was fifteen. That would have been weird.”  
  
“That’s what I thought,” that was all he’d really meant. Rex didn’t want his protectiveness to seem possessive.  
  
“Besides, I thought Commander Wolffe was much cuter,” Ahsoka laughed at the utter ridiculousness of that admission.  
  
Now that made Rex uncomfortable. “Old One Eye? I will NEVER understand women,” Rex laughed. But he was a little hurt. He sucked in his stomach a little and tried not to slouch, trying to at least look better than he felt. “Changing the subject, do you think General Skywalker or Kenobi got away?”  
  
“Obi-Wan was never found, but if he was alive, I’d have expected him to make contact with someone by now,” based on Ahsoka’s expression, Rex knew she wasn’t optimistic.  
  
She could tell Rex felt sad. Her expression was one of askance.  
  
Rex finally admitted something he’d never said to someone outside his own family, “Cody killed him. Those damned chips. Cody never would have done that, he loved the General like a brother. He only told those lies after because he didn’t want to face the firing squad. Whoever used those mind control chips put the screws on him. I don’t envy what he must have gone through,” Rex couldn’t vouch for a lot of the stuff he did afterwards, though. But he still loved his brother.  
  
“Cody made his choice, Rex. At the very least, he lied. You know, I heard recently that he became a wanted criminal?” Ahsoka filled her glass again and raised it. “To the Chancellor,” she said in a bored voice.  
  
“Ha! So are we. Good for him. Wanted for what?” Rex scratched the back of head.  
  
“Piracy, I think,” Ahsoka didn’t seem to care much. She had never been close to him.  
  
Rex doubted there was really much to tell. The Empire accused people of all kinds of crimes. Rex looked thoughtful, “I guess I would expect the same of Skywalker as Kenobi. That he’d have come back by now if he was alive. They killed Padme. He would be dead before he let that happen.”  
  
Ahsoka thought for a moment, “Yeah. I guess Anakin would.” She’d stressed her old master’s name a little.  
  
\--  
  
Ahsoka, Ezra and Kanan left early the next day. Rex worried that he would look too needy if he commed Ahsoka. So he had no choice but to tell himself it wasn’t, he was just checking in. He admitted that he was just telling himself what he wanted to hear. Then, before he knew it, he was punching in the com signature.  
  
Rex felt like a fool the moment he saw her face in the hologram. Calm. Like it wasn’t bothering her at all.  
  
“Hi, Rex,” her tone seemed unsurprised he would call. Rex worried she might have joked about it with Kanan and Ezra.  
  
“I just wanted to let you know, I’ll be leaving my comlink on all the time. So don’t hesitate to contact me,” Rex struggled to make it sound casual.  
  
“Once we drop out of hyperspace, we’ll be going dark,” Ahsoka answered matter of factly.  
  
Rex hazarded a little trepidation, “Are you sure about this?”  
  
“Yes,” she said flatly.  
  
“Ahsoka, you don’t have to go to Malachor alone, I can be there in two rotations,” Rex hoped he wouldn’t sound like he was pleading.  
  
She stated the obvious, “I’m not alone, Rex.”  
  
Oh no, he thought. She’s got THEM. She smiled in a way that made Rex feel very silly. He didn’t want to be silly. So of course, he tried to joke.  
  
“You know, I could have ordered you to take me along,” Rex thought his attempt at a joke sounded only slightly less desperate than, ‘please take me with you!’  
  
“You…don’t exactly out rank me anymore,” Ahsoka said. Rex wondered why she had said that. From the first time they met, she seemed eager to point out that he never had out ranked her, not once.  
  
Rex wondered at that. Had she already forgotten? “In my book, experience out ranks everything.” That was the first thing he’d ever told her. Reminding her, however gently, that a little humility never hurt anyone.  
  
She looked at him with a face like she thought that was cute, “Then I definitely out rank you.”  
  
As if he didn’t feel miserable enough, she had put him in his place.  
  
Rex’s face turned pained. This was it, then. “May the Force be with you,” he said.  
  
She didn’t say a word in response, but turned off the com.  
  
\--  
  
Atollon Six months later-  
  
Ezra and Kanan had returned of course. But Ahsoka was gone. They had never told anyone what happened on Malachor. Jedi stuff was for Jedi stuff, the Rebellion had no jurisdiction, let alone Rex. He swallowed his grief and got back to work. Rex found himself volunteering for more relief missions and evacuations than potential firefights. It made him feel cleaner for some reason.  
  
It wasn’t for a few months that Rex could finally thought he could bear to get around to going through the contents of Ahsoka’s crate. There wasn’t much, some tools and odd things. At the bottom were some data files. A small disk contained some holostills from the war. There were only a few, but the images were of them when they were young. Rex started looking through them.  
  
Then, a wellspring of feeling spread in his chest, Rex suddenly found himself, kneeling on the floor of his room in tears. Jedi might not have been able to form attachments, but Rex was no Jedi either. At least he was alone, he thought. He didn’t want to be caught feeling sorry for himself.  
  
Suddenly the door panel hissed and slid open. Rex felt as embarrassed as if he’d been caught on the toilet. Then he felt a wave of relief as Kanan slowly ambled into the room, arms extended in front of him.  
  
He was still wearing a mask over the top half of his face, something that Rex found curious. Clones liked their scars. They were something that made them unique, something that told their own story. He didn’t understand why Kanan would want to cover up.  
  
At least, Rex thought, Kanan hadn’t seen anything incriminating. Nobody crying in there, nope.  
  
“Rex, I need your help,” Kanan seemed to be looking around. As if trying to identify the source of a smell or sound.  
  
Rex stood up as quietly as possible and casually coughed so the tears abated, “Sure, Kanan, what can I do for you?” He swallowed so hard it hurt.  
  
“Can you trim this beard? I can’t do it myself and Hera says it looks terrible,” Kanan pulled at the hair on his jawline.  
  
Rex struggled not to laugh. It was as she said. “Oh sure. I used to cut my brothers’ hair all the time,” Rex took Kanan’s hand and led it to the one chair in the room.  
  
Kanan sat down and took off the mask. Across his eye line was the unmistakable singe of a precision lightsaber strike. This one had been deep enough to blind him, but not deep enough to explode the eyeballs. Somewhere halfway between a Skywalker and a full Commander Wolffe, in the range of eye scars of that type. They were once common scars, at least among Rex’s social circle. They were rare anymore, Rex guessed. Kanan’s probably would have stood out. A mask wasn’t ideal, but at least it wouldn’t get you arrested for questioning.  
  
Rex retrieved his beard trimmer out of the wall drawer. He had had a lot of experience with rehabilitation among his brothers. “It takes some getting used to, huh? It’s amazing how much we take for granted about our daily routines.”  
  
“Don’t I know it,” Kanan said seriously.  
  
Rex set the clippers and went to work. He noticed some gray hairs in Kanan’s whiskers.  
  
“So, Ahsoka was telling us that you invented the Jedi clone assisted combat protocols. We studied those when I was at the Temple,” Kanan mentioned somewhat hesitantly.  
  
Rex didn’t want to get himself started again, so he focused on the easy part, “Well, invented, I can’t say. We were developing new things all the time, just from the field. I just collected them and my General and I wrote the formal training manuals to improve the effectiveness of our fighting force. Sort of irrelevant these days I guess. We did get to pick the names of the techniques, though. That was fun. Mine were pretty practical. The Toss and Catch. The Push and Fire. General Skywalker’s were a little more dramatic. The Sword and Shield. The Turnabout.”  
  
“I remember those manuals from when I was an initiate,” Kanan’s voice had taken on a humbler tone since Malachor.  
  
“Commander Wolffe and his girlfriend used to say that they all sounded like sex euphemisms, but they thought that about everything,” Rex shook his head. He had just seen a holostill of his brother. He still felt bad about how he’d left things. “Although, Skywalker’s girlfriend told me it was probably intentional, at least on his part. He had a sneaky sense of humor like that.” Rex blushed, just as he had when Padme had told him.  
  
Kanan didn’t laugh. He was still a child when the war ended, so he might be forgiven for his naivete, “Your Jedi general had a girlfriend?”  
  
Rex felt awkward for a moment. He didn’t think he was breaking any confidences, since all involved were dead. “Well, from what I saw, they all had their personal struggles. Even Jedi are people.”  
  
Kanan was quiet for a bit. Then he asked, “So he felt….conflicted? About the life he’d chosen? I sense you feel that way.”  
  
He knew better than to lie to someone who could see right through him. Rex had been thinking a lot lately about his brother Cut. “Sometimes. But with few exceptions there was no other way of life for us than fighting. It was all we were allowed.”  
  
“Did you ever want to leave it behind?” Kanan asked, with a touch of a whisper.  
  
“I tried, remember? You all came and got me,” Rex chuckled a little. It felt good after the tears. It was Rex’s turn to be quiet for a moment. He had come to the Rebellion for Ahsoka. Probably no one had expected him to stay. But he’d stuck it out. He was stubborn like that. Rex leaned back and made sure he had Kanan’s beard even. He had tried to bury it, but it was no use, Kanan could tell what he was feeling. So he made a confession, “I might try if I find any other life worth having.”  
  
Kanan surprised him, “I think about it. Joining the Rebellion wasn’t exactly my idea.”  
  
Rex shut off the clippers to listen.  
  
“I nearly died on Malachor. It has made me think about things. I’m trying to be a good Jedi, but…” Kanan blinked a few times. His empty eyes stood still.  
  
“…you couldn’t help but realize what’s important,” Rex finished, unsurprised.  
  
“Eh. I tell myself it doesn’t matter what I want. No matter what I do, the Empire will never stop chasing me, just because of who I am. Just because I was born with these abilities. Hera will never give up this life. And Ezra, he’s depending on me to complete his training. I just feels like I didn’t ask for any of this,” Kanan blurted out.  
  
“I saw most of my friends fail at making all the pieces fit,” Rex left himself out of the example, he realized as soon as he’d said it. He didn’t know if it meant he was deluded or still hopeful that he could someday.  
  
“That’s just it, I feel more clarity than ever. I will do anything to protect my family, but what they do isn’t up to me.”  
  
“I guess that’s what letting go is,” Rex assured him.  
  
“Was your General a good Jedi? Even though he had faults?” Kanan asked.  
  
“He was the best,” Rex maintained. “I don’t consider what he did a fault. More…he questioned his programming. He had the courage to live the life he wanted. It wasn’t right that they made him lie. At least he knew better than to be ashamed of himself. From my point of view, that was a strength.” Rex thought of Cut again. Old Man Lawquane, as his neighbors called him, was probably a literal grandpa by then.  
  
“Was your General a good…boyfriend?” Kanan asked awkwardly.  
  
Rex hazarded a joke, “Well, we weren’t THAT close.”  
  
“I…I meant…” Kanan stammered. “I meant…was he able to be a good Jedi and be what she needed him to be?”  
  
Rex had never seen anything that led him to believe otherwise. What little he could tell, they’d always looked perfectly happy. But for some reason Rex remembered something Ahsoka had said.  
  
“I don’t know,” Rex answered honestly.  
  
Kanan stood to go. He put the mask back on immediately, Rex noticed. He kept it on around almost everyone.  
  
Kanan ran his hand over the beard. “Thanks Rex.”  
  
“Well, I do have the most beard experience of anyone I know,” he tried to deflect the show of gratefulness. He knew how hard it could be to overcome your pride and ask for help. He thought that was a strength, too.  
  
Kanan paused, “Let me know if I can return the favor.”  
  
Rex swallowed hard. “Actually there might be something. I’m trying to find someone who was arrested by the Empire, but I don’t know where to look.”  
  
Kanan smirked, “What’s her name?”


	2. Any Meal I Eat With You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Gregor, memory is a funny thing. For Wolffe, it's a game.

Seelos  
  
Gregor laid back against the foot of the walker and looked up at the stars. These days he could always see lots of them and he always felt a little surprised to see them for some reason. Like seeing stars was a novelty, but he couldn’t remember why. Everyone else seemed to take stars for granted, so Gregor thought. Most people didn’t make sense to Gregor anymore. Wolffe always said they had to stick together because everyone was crazy except the two of them. Sometimes Gregor had his doubts about Wolffe. But Gregor didn’t tell him that. It would have hurt his feelings. Wolffe always had too many feelings around cluttering up the place, Gregor thought.  
  
Wolffe and Gregor were lounging around the fire, having finished their grilled joopa dinner. They had decided to cook outside rather than use the stove in the walker. Wolffe always grilled small pieces of the joopa, which could be skewered with sticks, or kit forks. No knives or plates necessary. Gregor remembered Rex used to grill big joopa steaks until they were perfectly tender and juicy, served on plates that could actually hold a sauce. Wolffe always said smaller pieces were better. It took less fire fuel to cook them so it wasn’t as wasteful. This annoyed Gregor slightly, but he would never say anything. He didn’t feel like listening to Wolffe’s monologue about how he was unappreciated, or how they were making less money than when Rex was there. Gregor thought Wolffe just didn’t want to do dishes. Gregor knew Wolffe was just doing his best. He knew because Wolffe told him that all the time.  
  
Rex was off working. Or had he died already. Gregor couldn’t remember which, and he was afraid to ask because then Wolffe would know how much he couldn’t remember these days. Gregor didn’t want to worry him, so he just waited for it to come up.  
  
Wolffe had his cheap guitar that he claimed he’d won in a card game. But Gregor knew that wasn’t true, Wolffe had delivery ordered it. Wolffe was finishing singing something. His emotions were sincere, so Gregor didn’t want to discourage him. He needed the outlet. When he was done Gregor clapped to humor him. But Gregor was glad the song was finished so he could finally get a word in edgewise.  
  
Gregor stopped clapping and asked, “Do you know that one that goes, ‘Yub nub, eee chop yub nub ah toe meet toe pee-chee keene g'noop dock fling oh ah. Yah wah…’”  
  
Wolffe leaned his head back and looked down their substantial nose at Gregor. “Are you taking the piss? What kind of nonsense is that?” He turned on his sound recorder.  
  
Gregor scowled at him, “Isn’t Ewokese a real language?”  
  
Wolffe gave Gregor their most dubious look, “You speak Ewokese?”  
  
“Who doesn’t?” Gregor thought for a minute that they were playing that game where you have to speak only in questions.  
  
“How do you speak Ewokese?” Wolffe cracked his knuckles.  
  
“Don’t you know it’s a primitive dialect?” Gregor asked. Then he couldn’t remember why he was phrasing things as questions. So he shrugged and stopped. “We used to get them in at Power Sliders, when I worked there.”  
  
“As customers? I didn’t know those things had access to space travel,” Wolffe ran his hand over the top of his head like he did sometimes when he still wanted a drink.  
  
That was another thing Gregor missed about Rex. At least Rex and Gregor could shoot the shit over some of Rex’s home-made distillate. Gregor didn’t know how to make more and when he’d asked Wolffe to make a batch, Wolffe said it wasn’t really a good idea for him to do that. For some reason Gregor couldn’t remember, Wolffe rarely drank, and whenever he did, he seemed ashamed of himself.  
  
Gregor looked up and saw a shooting star, “The ewoks were hunted on their home moon and brought to Abafar and sold in the butchers’ market. We’d cut them up ourselves in the back of the diner. I was actually good at butchering. I had a rubber apron and boots and a cleaver and a chopping block and everything. But Borkus would lodge the ewoks with me for a few weeks to fatten them up on table scraps and whatnot. I’d talk to them.”  
  
Wolffe squinted, “They were still alive?”  
  
“Sure. Only way you could be sure of the species you were getting at the meat market on Abafar was to buy livestock. Skinned, those trappers would try to sell you a tooka and call it a quadduck if they could bilk you out of a few grams of spice, we used to say. If you didn’t get your ewoks with the heads still on, it could just as easily have been a Lannik who kissed the wrong Hutt’s dancing girl.”  
  
“Wait, so…they’re fully sentient, these ewoks? Are you sure you weren’t just imagining things? Drinking a little too much of that wine you said they put jet fuel in,” Wolffe cocked an eyebrow.  
  
Gregor smiled at how asymmetrical it made Wolffe look, especially in the uneven light of the fire. “I said they put equipment de-icer in it. And of course they are. I offered them some of the wine. Doesn’t take much to get those little bastards drunk. They laugh so cute. They said it was no hard feelings, me killing them and all. That was the way of things. They asked me to make sure I ate some of each of them because they said I was a nice guy and they would be glad to nourish me.”  
  
“You…still butchered them?” Wolffe chuckled nervously.  
  
“Had to. It was my job,” Gregor had gotten amnesia from a head injury and worked for a year during the war as an indentured servant in a crummy diner. He was more accepting of his lot in life than Wolffe was, generally. “If I hadn’t, I might just as easily be on the menu. Borkus didn’t give a kark.”  
  
Wolffe thought for a moment. “How’d they taste?”  
  
“Chewy, I mean, the only way we could make use of the meat was to cure it and make jerky, so they were kind of tough and leathery. But it was easy to make because Abafar had lots of salt.” Gregor didn’t like Abafar much, but he remembered it pretty well. Seelos reminded him of it.  
  
Wolffe put the instrument down and warmed his hands by the fire. “I feel bad for those creatures. People can be so specist when it comes to creatures covered with hair, just assuming they’re automatically lower on the food chain.”  
  
“They told me, they had eaten many humans before. Human meat was special. Every time they caught one in their village, it was a cause for celebration with a feast. They called human ‘heaven meat’ because it came from the sky,” Gregor yawned. He was getting sleepy. He just had to steel himself for the climb up the ladder into the walker. His knees ached. Gregor decided he might just go to sleep there in front of the fire. He yawned and set his head down just to rest for a minute. “Anyway, that’s what they said the song was for, a celebration song after a successful human hunt. You should learn it, the song’s got a nice rhythm to clap to.” He yawned again and closed his eyes.  
  
Wolffe chuckled nervously, “Gregor, why do you keep bringing up cannibalism? You know there are only two of us here and if one of us is against eating people and the other one is *not* against it….you know one guy is a lot more likely to get the worst of that scenario, potentially speaking.”  
  
Gregor thought Wolffe just talked most of the time to amuse himself. “Just keep me fed and adequately hydrated, brother. That’s all I really need,” Gregor joked. Gregor knew it wasn’t as simple as he’d made it sound. There wasn’t much work in the galaxy for decommissioned clones. It was hard making their living slinging. But there wasn’t much else to do on Seelos. They didn’t have a ship or the price it would cost to get enough fuel to go off world. They weren’t robust looking enough to buy passage with labor. Weren’t good looking enough to prostitute themselves, so Wolffe said. He claimed to be an expert on the industry. He had a badge to prove it, so Gregor didn’t think he could successfully refute Wolffe’s assertion.  
  
So since they had no other choice, Wolffe and Gregor survived the way they could, catching more food than they could eat and then selling it in the settlements for whatever else they needed. It was hard to get any forward momentum in life that way. Their AT-AT walker had been a windfall, since it was new, it didn’t break down as much as the old AT-TE and it could cover ground faster. But it needed more fuel and maintenance. Sometimes they didn’t make any profit at all from their slinging trips. Gregor wished he could be more helpful. But they both got tired a lot. The fact that they could die by mishap in the middle of the wilderness at any time always creeped around the edge of Gregor’s consciousness like the dark around the feeble light of a single torch. Gregor worried that besides Wolffe, nobody else would even care what happened to him. On his worst days, he was sure that Woflfe would get tired of him and just leave him.  
  
Gregor yawned and forgot his earlier caution, “Wolffe, do we know what happened to Rex?”  
  
Wolffe sighed like he’d heard the question before.  
  
Gregor’s cheeks got hot with embarrassment, so he kept his eyes shut tight.  
  
“Yes, well, we haven’t heard anything…yet,” Wolffe explained gently. “But I’m sure he’s coming back. I took a handful of dirt from his last footprint on Seelos and I put it in a bottle and put the cap on tight. I’ve showed it to you, I’m sure.”  
  
“Does all that magic stuff really work?” Gregor felt his nose hairs quaver as tears struggled to rise behind his lowered eyelids. He missed Rex.  
  
“Of course it does. Wishes are easier to make come true than people think. You just have to help them along and give them a push,” Wolffe always gestured when he was in storytelling mode.  
  
Gregor liked him like that, so he opened his eyes and blotted them. “Dirt from a footprint?” Gregor yawned.  
  
“Earth has very powerful magic. Everyone knows, the most dangerous type is earth from a freshly dug grave. But I won’t touch that. Too dangerous. You make an oath on that, and break it, and it burrows in and eats at you until you become nothing but cold bone.” Wolffe sounded completely sincere.  
  
Gregor laughed, “I think you’re just making this up.”  
  
“So what if I am. If I believe it, that’s something. Most people don’t really believe in anything,” Wolffe kissed his two fingers and touched the guitar. He treated it like a person, he had a name for it and everything.  
  
Gregor closed his eyes again. “Seriously, you should learn ‘Yub Nub’.”  
  
“Well, although I am afraid to ask what the lyrics mean, I did like how you sang it. I’ll see what I can do, Gregor.”  
  
Gregor felt Wolffe throw his blanket over him and heard his footfalls as he climbed the ladder to his part of the walker to sleep.  
  
\--  
  
Gregor had a dream.  
  
He couldn’t see except for a T-shaped crack of light. But he knew he was in a building? No…a gunship. Other beings were there, close to him, he could sense them. Armor and weapons clattered softly, the only sign of movement. They were trying to be still, waiting for something.  
  
The door to the gunship opened wide and flooded them with light. Through the visor, across the waste of what Gregor knew had been a city, Gregor could see an armor clad figure holding aloft a ray of blue light. Gregor knew that meant to follow. He could hear his brother Cody’s voice in his ear. “Move, move, move!” Gregor readied for advance, he felt those around him do the same. The blue ray swiped downwards. Gregor ran forward, firing.  
  
Vulture droids landed in formation on the marble city street. The droids fired back at them. Gregor saw two figures fall in his peripheral vision. He kept his eyes on the target. Suddenly there was a flash and Gregor felt himself being thrown back. His ears rang and his eyes were light-blinded.  
  
Gregor woke up, forgetting the dream as soon as his eyes opened.  
  
Now he was wide awake. Gregor hated that. Whenever he was wide awake, he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. Wolffe had told him to just try, but Gregor knew it wouldn’t work. He didn’t want to bother Wolffe while he slept. Or whatever else he did when he was alone.  
  
Gregor sighed.  
  
He was bored. He’d forgotten his datapad in the walker. Like always happened to him when he was wide awake at night, Gregor began to hear noises.  
  
The sounds came from the dark, just beyond the light of the fire. Gregor found it easy to imagine each sound was a specific presence. Wolffe had told him they were just nocturnal animals, or other things you didn’t notice during the day and that the little life forms were more scared of him and his fire than he was of them.  
  
But when he was alone, Gregor somehow got the sense that there was more to it. The presences he felt were more…aware…than that. They were watching him. Talking to him. Whenever he felt them near, Gregor was certain they were judging him. This flooded him with negative thoughts.  
  
“You’re a burden.”  
  
“Nobody loves you.”  
  
“Your brother knows he would be better off without you.”  
  
“Rex left because of you.”  
  
“Nobody wants you.”  
  
They wouldn’t leave him alone, as he replayed scenarios in his head and interpreted them through a lens of bad feelings.  
  
By the time Wolffe brought down the caf thermos in the morning, Gregor thought he knew Wolffe hated him, so he withdrew into silence for a while. This made Wolffe irritable. The pieces of joopa on the grill for breakfast were practically mincemeat. Gregor didn’t dare say a word.  
  
Afterwards, Wolffe was driving the walker. Gregor was in charge of navigating, but even he knew it was largely nominal, there were only so many places to go on Seelos. He was trying to draw Wolffe out, get him talking, so he wouldn’t be so grumpy.  
  
Irritability could easily lead to conflict. Gregor had been conditioned since childhood to recognize things like that. Gregor could not specifically remember Wolffe ever hitting him, although he was sure other brothers in his life had. Borkus had hit him. All the time. Wolffe told him their Mandalorian trainers had hit them near constantly as kids. Therefore, Gregor had learned to go through life on pins and needles whenever anyone yelled. He tried to diffuse the tension by involving Wolffe in some light conversation.  
  
“I think my fish is starting to resent me buying him the off brand fish flakes,” Gregor stared dubiously at his pocket aquarium. “Wolffe, I told you, we need to go back through Kwymartown. I wanna check if they have an order of the good ones in yet.” Gregor wanted Wolffe’s help talking to the woman at the livestock and feed store. She wasn’t much to look at, but Gregor thought he might have a chance.  
  
Wolffe ran his hand over his head, “Yes, Gregor, I already told you, we just need to stay out of K-Town for a little while, until we can be sure nobody is looking for Declan.” ‘Declan’ was what they called the AT-AT they’d salvaged from their Imperial skirmish. Named after Rex’s old pet eopie because they looked alike. “But if I know my Imperial protocols, and I think I do,” Wolffe sounded sarcastic. Gregor giggled.  
  
“Recovering what’s left of their equipment will not be worth the cost of fuel to come to this planet again. And that’s even if they include us. I think the heat should be off soon. For now, we’re going to P.P.T.” Wolffe told him.  
  
Gregor tapped the aquarium. “Sorry King Kantunko,” he apologized to his fish,” You’ll be eating better soon, I promise.”  
  
Wolffe stifled a sigh.  
  
Gregor scratched at his sunburned head, “P.P.T.? Is that the spaceport with that one good restaurant or the one with the better looking hookers? Because if you were to ask me for my preference, I can always have sex in the dark but it is difficult to get the taste of bad food out of my mouth.” Gregor nodded, deciding that was inoffensive.  
  
Wolffe shook his head slowly and sighed, “So you say every time.”  
  
“If I can’t remember, it’s new to me,” Gregor joked feebly. He did jazz hands. For some reason, Wolffe said that always made jokes funnier.  
  
Wolffe did laugh, “That’s why I keep telling you the same jokes. You laugh every time. It’s very flattering,” Wolffe smiled and rubbed Gregor’s bald head. “It’s the one with the good restaurant. Okay Gregor, who are we this time?” Wolffe’s spirits brightened. Gregor felt relieved.  
  
Whenever they went to the spaceport, they used aliases and made up back stories. Wolffe said probably no one was looking for them, but it was good fun just the same.  
  
“Let’s be pharmaceutical reps again,” Gregor grabbed down the tin of clone fake id’s he, Wolffe, and Rex had collected through the years. “I like when you do sales pitches, the fast mumbly voice as you list side effects.”  
  
“Aw, I hoped maybe I could do some busking,” Wolffe was always trying to incorporate one of his perceived talents into their characters. Brother had a high opinion of himself as an artist, so Gregor thought. If I could do it, it ain’t art, so the old clone saying went.  
  
“Maybe we could be missionaries. I could make up religious hymns. I could come up with pharmaceutical style sales pitches for different gods,” Wolffe looked out over the horizon and punched the throttle on the walker, testing the speed for fun.  
  
The AT-AT lightly trotted along, kicking up some dust. The shocks on the thing were definitely an improvement over their old six-leggers, and those long legs were definitely faster. Gregor thought those Imperials drove like grannies.  
  
“Uh...,” Gregor scratched his bald head, “Maybe not. Last time we were missionaries, people threw their liquor bottles at us.”  
  
“Some of them weren’t empty, so you came out of that winning, from my point of view. Also, I’ve gotten a lot better at playing music since then. We’ll get some more pills so my fingers aren’t so stiff,” Wolffe was referring to the over the counter painkiller that was widely available throughout the galaxy.  
  
One thing Gregor missed about the Republic was the proper medical care. Wolffe and Gregor had chronic conditions that they were just treating with over the counter stuff. They had to buy generic painkillers in what Gregor referred to as R2 sized bottles. They weren’t that big, but Gregor liked the hyperbolic joke. They needed so many, because they went for so long between supply runs. Gregor missed proper medication that treated the causes of ailments, not just symptoms. But Wolffe said prescription medications were addictive and could kill them at their age. Surgeries were too expensive and unsafe on the planet. So they lived with things.  
  
Gregor crossed his arms, “Well, I’m not singing. They’ll laugh at us.”  
  
Wolffe smiled, “Please don’t sing ‘Yub Nub’, for all we know it’s offensive. Somebody’s uncle might have ended up heaven meat at some point. I hope there are lots of women around. They like when you’re not afraid to show your feelings and not afraid to laugh at yourself. Also, if they see you know how to use your fingers.”  
  
Gregor smirked, “Thirty-two!”  
  
Wolffe laughed at his reference. He and Gregor had been together so long and had the same conversations and told the same jokes that they had them numbered. Thirty two was the common story about how after the war started, cadets were going around Tipoca City claiming they had had sex, since they had actually obtained illicit pornography and could describe sex acts to seem more grown up to brothers who hadn’t seen it. One brother had shut down this brother claiming he’d shared a tryst with a woman. ‘You’ve never even seen a girl.’  
  
Gregor was evidently having a good memory day, Wolffe thought happily. He put his palm to his chest and feigned sincerity, “I swear, Brother Wolffe knows what he’s talking about. When did I ever steer anyone wrong?”  
  
Wolffe loved to give unsolicited advice on women. He said he was an experienced tactician and his advice was guaranteed to increase statistical chances of receiving a positive response when requesting intercourse. It’s not like there were many women on Seelos, so he couldn’t get himself into too much trouble.  
  
Wolffe slowed the walker and downshifted as they approached the turn off for the spaceport. “Except that one time, I told this brother about this brothel on Utapau…I mixed up Utai and Pauan and…”  
  
“Forty-seven!” Gregor jumped to the end. They laughed. The quote Wolffe was referencing was from the familiar clone joke about the businessman and the Utai prostitute. ‘Forty-seven’ referred to the punchline, ‘What do you mean, ‘wrong hole’’? Wolffe liked to tell jokes in the first person.  
  
Gregor chuckled. “Thirteen.”  
  
Wolffe laughed. “One-hundred-and-twenty-seven.”  
  
Gregor wrinkled his nose. “Eeeew.”  
  
Wolffe shook his head, “I know, right? My girlfriend told me that one.”  
  
Gregor smirked, “Thirty-two! I can’t wait to get the fried insects. Did I ever tell you they remind me of these things I used to make on Abafar?”  
  
Wolffe directed the walker towards the little cluster of domes in the distance, “Gregor, why do you remember Abafar so well? You barely remember Kamino or Coruscant when I talk about them, you don’t remember over three-quarters of the people you ever knew. Yet you can tell me everything you ever did or saw or ate on karking Abafar.”  
  
“I guess. I don’t know. I guess Abafar I remember because there wasn’t much there. So I took in every detail. Or maybe that part of my brain hasn’t been damaged yet, the part that remembers it,” Gregor had had quite a few concussions that he was aware of. That was besides the amnesia.  
  
“That makes sense. Speaking of memory, let’s play a quick round of ‘The Three’ before we get there,” Wolffe took out his player pod and put it in his cup holder.  
  
“Wolffe, come on, no more of these memory games. You know they’re hard for me.” Gregor looked out the windshield.  
  
“No, you’re doing good today. I bet you’ll do great. Or at least we’ll get some good stories,” Wolffe patted Gregor on the shoulder.  
  
“But no laughing at me, okay?” Gregor relaxed.  
  
“No guarantees. I want you to laugh at me,” Wolffe switched on his player pod recorder. “This is Brother Wolffe. And today we’re gonna play ‘The Three,’” he said in what he called his ‘sexy announcer voice’, “I am joined, as always, to my own little independent conjunction, Gregor.”  
  
“Weirdo.”  
  
“Okay, so Gregor, The Three today are the three best things you’ve ever eaten?”  
  
“Oh, I thought this was gonna be hard,” Gregor felt relieved.  
  
“Do you wanna go first,” Wolffe asked.  
  
“No, you go, I need time to think,” Gregor scratched the side of his neck.  
  
“I have a story. When we all first left Kamino at the start of the war, we were sent to Coruscant for training. Okay, so, I was commander of my battalion and my batch mates were my sergeants. I was getting a larger salary and my brothers were pissed at me. Since they were my batch mates, they said I had to make it fair. They demanded I divide my extra money between us, since that was how we did it in the academy. So I did. Then we all went to this street cart for sandwiches, but I realized I had left most of what was left of my money as a tip to the bartender the night before. So I was short of cash. I asked Trip to loan me some credits so I could get my sandwich and he said no. All the other guys said no as well. They bought their sandwiches and ate them in front of me. Laughed at me. So I gave a half credit to a guy standing there roasting grain cobs on a portable brazier. Now, I normally don’t eat grains since I consider them unclean. But he had a little fan made out of the grain husks. I asked if I could borrow it and he let me fan the smoke over to my brothers to make them cough and sting their eyes. The grain cobs were only a quarter of a credit and I still hadn’t eaten. So since I was desperate to eat, I accepted when he offered me one. I’ll be damned if that fricking grain cob wasn’t one of the greatest things I have ever tasted. Almost immediately my brothers got diarrhea from their lack of resistance to bacterial strains in the water that had washed the sandwich vegetables. I had eaten cooked food. Anyway, I never ate grain cobs again because I know where cultivated plants come from and I just couldn’t eat them anymore.”  
  
“Why?” Gregor asked.  
  
Wolffe shrugged, “There’s fecal matter involved, it’s totally gross.”  
  
Gregor was giggling. He loved it when Wolffe would be happy like this. Wolffe’s imaginary recording persona was a personality Gregor liked.  
  
“Rounding out my three for the best food would be the fish tacos at Biscuit Baron and the parfaits from the Senate commissary. What about you?”  
  
Gregor smirked, “I think my all-time best was vegan fry patties.”  
  
“Are you taking the piss…” Wolffe looked dubious.  
  
Gregor scratched his nose, “This one time on Abafar, this dirtbag comes in with this lady. He orders chipped meat sandwiches. She tells him very politely that she can’t eat the species the meat was from, it’s against her religion. He tells her she’ll eat what he tells her to and then threatened her with violence. Well, I was sneaky, I made hers from some beans and grains we had. Fried it up in a patty. He didn’t notice.”  
  
“Nice,” Wolffe was smiling broadly. It made him look younger.  
  
“Next time they came in there, she ‘gave him a little too much of his medication.’ He fell asleep on the counter, looking like a passed out drunk.” Gregor grew animated, “Borkus sent me out to ‘take out the trash’ so he wouldn’t have any witnesses while he rifled the guy’s clothes for cash. So me and this girl had a minute to sneak around the corner. I thought at most, I’d get a ‘thank you’, but before I knew it….no, I don’t want to betray confidences.”  
  
“Holy hell, Gregor!” Wolffe cackled.  
  
“Anyway, I like vegan fry patties. And properly cooked joopa steaks,” Gregor listed.  
  
“I’ve warned you…” Wolffe raised a finger.  
  
“And any meal I eat with you brother,” Gregor slapped the back of Wolffe’s neck.  
  
Wolffe spoke into the player pod, “Now I know you’re taking the piss. That has to be one of the best stories you’ve ever told, though. You’re a scoundrel.” He switched off the device as they drove into town.  
  
\--  
  
Palpatown, or Agrocitetown, as it used to be called, was a mining colony. Aside from working for the mining guild, there wasn’t much to do in old P.P.T. but eat at the one good restaurant, spend the night with the less good-looking whores, resupply with the basics, dry goods, over the counter medication and water, and head back out. Wolffe sarcastically referred to the place as ‘authentic’.  
  
Although Rex, Wolffe and Gregor had been on the planet for years and nearly everyone had seen them before, most people never asked questions about who they were or what they did. Their once identical appearances were now no more similar than other relatives. They were nondescript inhabitants of a nondescript Outer Rim rock. Nobody cared if they were alive, but nobody minded either.  
  
There was a new crop of miners recently arrived in P.P.T., Wolffe busied himself pretending that he and Gregor were location scouts for a holo-net program about Outer Rim food. Most of the miners there were workers recruited in the Outer Rim. Wolffe was having so much fun recording people telling him about peculiar recipes that he barely talked to Gregor all night. Gregor was quiet. By the time they loaded up the walker the next morning, Gregor had a migraine. They made camp that night and Gregor told Wolffe he wanted to sleep by the fire.  
  
Wolffe woke up in the morning and started the caf maker. He dressed, wincing as usual as old injuries were aggravated. He went over to the shelf they had set up as a kitchenette. He put music on his player pod and began to make the caf to fill the thermos. He looked in the cabinet for the pills. He had a wicked headache for some reason. Gregor had mentioned a headache the day before. Wolffe figured it was probably something contagious, like the start of a sinus cold. Wolffe was annoyed. At least back in the Republic, they had been given proper vaccinations for the illnesses that appeared. Now it seemed like they got sick every time they visited a spaceport.  
  
Wolffe knew that neither he nor Gregor had slept well. Gregor had had a nightmare. Wolffe could hear him yelling for a second. Then he was quiet, so Wolffe wasn’t even sure Gregor had woken from it. Wolffe had considered climbing down to see if he was alright. But the idea of climbing down an AT-AT leg in the dark didn’t sound safe. But Wolffe was awake already, so he couldn’t get back to sleep. He felt the headache coming on as he lay in his bed, listening to see if Gregor made another sound or called for him.  
  
Wolffe remembered he had left the pills by the fire so Gregor would remember to take half of one in the morning for his high blood pressure.  
  
Wolffe sang to himself as he puttered around the kitchenette. Once the caf was ready, Wolffe descended the ladder on the walker’s leg, the thermos hooked to his belt. Maybe in his younger days, he might have hazarded it and just hooked the thermos with his pinky and climbed down, but he was more afraid of falls than before. He was sure breaking a hip or a shin would put him out of commission for months. They might starve to death.  
  
On that cheery thought, Wolffe finally reached the foot of the walker and hopped off the ladder, shuddering at the jar to his joints.  
  
“Good morning, Gregor,” Wolffe saw the blanket rise and fall gently. “Gregor, do you know where the…”  
  
The bottle was lying next to Gregor, and a few handfuls had been cleared out.  
  
Wolffe dropped the thermos and fell to his knees beside Gregor, “Gregor? Gregor?”  
  
Gregor was still breathing.  
  
Wolffe shoved two fingers down Gregor’s throat. “Brother, no! No no no no no!”  
  
Finally, Gregor’s body convulsed. Wolffe turned him over and Gregor promptly threw up pills and mucous all over Wolffe’s lap. Then two more times. Then he gagged some yellow bile. The stench of stomach acid hit Wolffe’s nose and he gagged and dry heaved.  
  
“What are you shoving things down my throat for?” Gregor sputtered and smacked Wolffe in the chest as he sat up.  
  
“Gregor, why did you do that?” Wolffe looked pitiful, sitting on the ground.  
  
Gregor didn’t say anything for a moment. He toyed with the idea of pretending he didn’t know what Wolffe was talking about. But most of the pills were intact and sticking to Wolffe’s clothing.  
  
“Gregor?” Wolffe’s eyes were wide and rimmed with red.  
  
Gregor wiped his eyes with his hand, “It’s not gonna get any better, Wolffe.”  
  
Wolffe eyes protested feebly, “Gregor…”  
  
“No, I’m not a child, you can’t just tell me what you think I want to hear and tell me to go play.”  
  
Wolffe was struggling not to cry. He lost.  
  
Gregor wished Wolffe wouldn’t make it about him all the time.  
  
Gregor went over to the ladder and climbed up to his section of the walker, even though his hands were trembling and his head spun. He climbed in his bed and went to sleep. Wolffe cleaned himself up as best he could. He didn’t have any other clothes, so he had to hang his rinsed pants to dry. He tried to force feed Gregor some of the de-toxing gel. Gregor got up a few times to puke in the refresher. Wolffe made him swallow a few packets of the hydro-nutrition gel. Wolffe toyed with the idea of heading back to the spaceport to see if he could get Gregor some medical attention, but he almost laughed at the odds of a medical droid that didn’t belong to the Mining Guild being around. Once Gregor got up a few times to piss and Wolffe was sure he wasn’t going to die, he started driving the walker. For hours he drove in a daze, as Gregor snored and slept. Wolffe was glad for the bit of privacy. No one could see him wiping his eyes when they welled up too much to see.  
  
\--  
  
The next day, Gregor was up and around. He joined Wolffe in the walker’s head. They had repaired the top hatch as best they could after the light saber mangling those Jedi had given it. Wolffe had it open to let in fresh air, so the sun was shining on them. But Wolffe was scowling.  
  
Gregor slumped into his navigator chair and smiled dopily, “Well, I feel like turtle shit.”  
  
After a while, Wolffe got too agitated to keep his mouth shut any longer, “Are we even gonna talk about what happened?”  
  
“What happened?” Gregor opened a bag of fried crisps with the Mining Guild logo on the bag.  
  
“Gregor, I know you’re doing that on purpose, you know damn well what,” Wolffe smelled like vomit, so Gregor thought.  
  
“You tell me, Representative Stinks,” Gregor chuckled at his clever nickname.  
  
“If I ever find any way to prove that you hurt yourself on purpose instead of just because you forgot how many pills you’d taken, I’ll be really angry,” Wolffe menaced feebly.  
  
Gregor didn’t want to tell Wolffe about the voices he heard at night. The ones that told him to do it. Wolffe was really superstitious. Gregor knew he couldn’t tell Wolffe that he thought he heard a nasty little voice that seemed to be veiled somewhere just beyond Gregor’s vision. The voice had one of those creepy posh accents. It had told him over and over to end himself.  
  
Gregor decided to play coy, “What? I wouldn’t do that. What kind of talk is that? That’s no way for a brother to go out.”  
  
Wolffe rubbed Gregor’s bald head. But Gregor thought his smile looked forced.


	3. Chief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niner, one of the last surviving navy clones in service, is having a rough day.

Near the Krant System- Mid-Rim. On the Imperial Freighter Meebur Gascon. In the clone refresher.  
  
“Well, he’s giving this good ladle-full about some girl he saw once,” he affected an impression of that particular brother, “ ‘So then I said to her, baby’… And Hatch said to him, ‘You’ve never even met a girl.’ Brother had never left Kamino,” the younger Fett clone, Fiver, laughed and took a draught of Niner’s contraband distillate from his kit cup.  
  
The older clone, Niner chuckled weakly, then coughed. He took a sip from his flask.  
  
Niner had heard that story tons of times. It was one of those common anecdotes Fett clones exchanged about how stupid or clueless some brothers were. Only the names ever altered. Some brothers swore they were there when these things happened, or swore they knew a brother that was. Clones were repetitive conversationalists. Most of them just accepted it and participated in the verbal drudgery.  
  
That was what the universe had come to, pushing hard to move forward, but always seeming to come back around to the same place.  
  
Niner, the Navy clone, was old enough to remember when brothers were able to think for themselves. He could remember a time when clones were so numerous that army guys and navy guys barely associated because there were actual factions and different views and experiences. That was before the war ended the way it did.  
  
The Stormtrooper brother, Fiver, had been conscripted in the third year of the war. He could barely remember when brothers still had enough pride to look natural born people in the eye.  
  
Niner sighed and went back to staring at a small puddle of dirty water that had collected in an uneven section of floor. The filth swirled like a nebula. Niner gave the standard response to that particular story. “So many brothers just talk to fill the time.”  
  
They were in the clone refresher of the Imperial freighter, leaning against the wall, drinking while on duty, catching up on family gossip, and recalling better days.  
  
All this time clones had been in the military and brothers still had to shit separately from the natural born, Niner marveled. Brothers figured they could take their time in the refreshers then. The way Niner saw it, natural born navy guys had all kinds of jokes about how lazy clones were already. So Niner and his brothers figured it didn’t matter if they took extra-long trips to the toilet. Nobody ever cared when they left a room anyway, until they needed something fetched.  
  
Since there was no risk of an enbee walking in, a clone refresher was a good place to have a drink or a smoke. There were only five sons of Jango on the ship this run. Fewer every trip.  
  
Niner looked at his wrist com for the time. He rolled his eyes, “Break’s over, got to get back up to the bridge.”  
  
Niner and his brother slapped hands. Though this might be the last time they spoke, Niner resisted any other show of sentimentality or emotion. Fiver returned his Stormtrooper helmet to his head and the brothers walked down the hallway to the bridge entrance. The door panel slid open and they silently walked back to their respective posts.  
  
Rows of Stormtroopers stood in formation wherever there was space. The freighter wasn’t large enough to have a full barrack on board for troop transport. So the Stormtroopers had to spend most of the journey ‘guarding the bridge’. It was better than going in the unheated cargo hold, which was threatened any time anyone complained about overcrowding. The troopers lined up and didn’t speak, just looking straight ahead the whole trip. That was all that was permitted.  
  
Niner saluted them halfheartedly and sat down to resume his shift in front of his console. Niner’s vision was so bad, the letters on the screen were blurred as if the screen had frost on the inside. But Niner had been at the job so long, he could have run that console with his eyes shut. Half the time he was in a fugue state. He didn’t even have daydreams to give him any relief.  
  
Niner pressed a button and put his hand against the earphone for his better ear and listened. As a communications officer, as long as he had one working ear, the navy couldn’t force him to stop working.  
  
A few years before, his Highness had officially decommissioned the clones, giving most clones their first opportunity for manumission. But as there was no pension, no medical care, and laws in place barring businesses from hiring clones. The only other options were to stay in the military or take the old ‘VA retirement package’. The clones were still technically wards of the state, so decisions about what treatment they received fell to the Empire. It was generous…with the pentobarbital. Lying in a hospital bed with nobody around but droids was no way for a brother to go out, Niner thought.  
  
As it was, Niner was tucked away not bothering anybody on duty on a military freighter in the Mid-Rim, running supplies and troopers on a route between Druckenwell and Lahsbane. The mission was not direct combat, they rarely saw more action than chasing a blockade runner or two. Lahsbane was occupied by an Imperial garrison that was facing open rebellion from the populace. The Empire denied the existence of an organized uprising, but continued to send soldiers and weapons to ‘pacify’ the world. The conflict was relegated to background news on the official holo-net channels in the Core.  
  
Niner was the only permanent resident in the clone barracks on his ship. So he had roomed with some of his brothers in the Stormtrooper Corps that were headed to reinforce Lahsbane. The fighting conditions were so harsh, they reported, that among the army guys, it was known as Gangrene Resort.  
  
Niner told himself he was lucky. But on his worst days, he had to admit, he envied them dying with some kind of dignity, no matter how disgusting. Niner calculated that the best outcome he could hope for was a drug overdose in a brothel. But that the most likely outcome, statistically speaking, was to keel over dead at the console. Calculating was something any brother knew how to do. That fancy clone academy education was worth something at least. It was more than those natural born Stormtroopers ever had.  
  
The two ranking Imperial naval officers were looking out the main view port on the bridge, standing on the catwalk right above the well where Niner sat. Niner discretely switched his headphones to a frequency to amplify their voices. He often listened to their conversations, but they never noticed. If anyone on the ship ever double crossed him, Niner knew dirt on everybody. Just a little insurance policy.  
  
“Are you sure you can trust this message?” The blonde lieutenant asked the captain in hushed tones. “Not much out here.” The lieutenant was new. He was not as comfortable with corruption as the rest of the crew. That is, he wanted the money, but he still feared getting caught.  
  
The captain waved him off dismissively, “His claim sounded legitimate, so I ran the record.” He brushed an imaginary bit of lint off of his shoulder, trying to look nonchalant. “If the man is who this bounty hunter says, the fee will be substantial. Apparently his record is rather broad and scandalous. We might even get a story about us on the Imperial holo-net channels when we bring him in,” the captain smirked.  
  
Niner shook his head. Every mediocre Imperial officer was trying to be famous. Trying to get the Emperor’s attention. It was an enbee thing.  
  
A ship appeared out of hyperspace.  
  
“Is that a starship?” The lieutenant snorted. It looks like the toy floats the toadlets make out of trash on Rodia.” He wrinkled his nose as if he had equal contempt for Rodia, trash, and toys. Niner had heard him use the term ‘toads’ before. He meant Rodians. ‘Toadlet’ was a new one to Niner, but he could infer.  
  
Human supremacists were really generous with the sobriquets. The lieutenant had already taken to calling Niner ‘Chief’ as a ‘nickname’. Nobody else on the bridge was given nicknames. But the lieutenant could remember their names.  
  
“Open a com channel,” the captain ordered, snapping in Niner’s direction.  
  
Niner obliged.  
  
The captain directed his gaze at the ship out of the port, “This is Imperial Freighter Meebur Gascon. We received your…distress hail.”  
  
A voice came over the link, “What distress? I captured this piece of filth. You’re here, so I presume you can pay what I asked for him.”  
  
It made Niner’s scalp tingle. The voice was nearly identical to his own. In fact, the differences were undetectable to most people who weren’t clones.  
  
There were always anecdotes about brothers who had left the military. From what Niner knew, they had somewhat desperate existences, living on the run. The Empire technically still owned all of the clones, so a brother going off on his own was illegal. Obtaining traditional employment was tricky. Bounty hunting was one of the few professions that would allow clones in the ranks. A brother could do it, but it wasn’t easy and there was plenty of competition.  
  
The freighter where Niner served didn’t have real policing authority beyond being an official military craft. It was common for bounty hunters to venture in from the Outer Rim and to contact the first Imperial supply ship they could locate and to turn their prisoners over. It was better than approaching something more heavily armed. The bounty hunters would ask for a fraction of the price for their prisoners if they could be paid in spice and disappear with no questions asked. This was common practice, because if they ventured too far into Imperial space, or turned people over directly to Imperial Security Bureau, the bounty hunters risked being arrested or shot and those ISB double crossers got the prisoner and the money.  
  
ISB were dicks. That’s the freedom that came with knowing you could act with impunity. They were the Emperor’s thug force. Even then, those guys were better than the Inquisitors’ Squad. Even Imperials didn’t want to run into them. They didn’t even care about things like money or whose side anyone was on. They didn’t like witnesses or people who got in their ways.  
  
For their part, freighter crews, like the Meebur Gascon, welcomed the opportunity for side hustles, so generally they accepted the prisoners. It was a simple affair to throw the captured criminals in the brig, pay a little spice in exchange, then give the criminal over to the local authorities next time they passed by a substantial Imperial settlement. The captain could take credit for the capture. The full bounty in Imperial credits was then distributed among the freighter crew. The Empire didn’t ask many questions about this kind of corruption. It was grateful for prisoners, hungry for cheap labor and private contractors got rich running the facilities. Everyone was making money on the Imperial policy of mass incarceration.  
  
The Empire didn’t give people like Niner much room to be principled about it, even if they found it to be a shocking state of affairs. Niner took his part in the schemes, just like anybody else. It wasn’t like the Empire had ever tried to inspire him to be loyal. Of course, his cut of the profits would be smaller than everyone else’s. But he was expected to thank the captain to the sky for the favor. That was just protocol.  
  
The captain paced back and forth above Niner. Niner could clearly see the lifts in the heels of his shiny boots. “Good work, bounty hunter,” the captain folded his hands behind his back, body language that was meant to make him look in command of the situation. “We’ll take him from here. Please switch on the hologram so that we may verify identity. ”  
  
“Yes, sir, right away sir,” Niner’s brother’s voice answered.  
  
Niner wondered for a moment why his brother was affecting the Jango accent extra hard. His voice almost sounded like brothers did when they were pretending to be stupid, Niner thought.  
  
The hologram appeared and the captain was staring face to face with a hologram of a Weequay who looked a bit long in the horns.  
  
“Facial scanners have acknowledged,” Niner reported to the lieutenant.  
  
“I will bring him over for the exchange,” Niner’s brother’s voice came over the com, although he was out of the range of the viewer.  
  
“In Imperial grade spice, as specified,” the captain said easily.  
  
In addition to its use as an intoxicant, spice was hard currency in the wilder parts of the galaxy. Its trade was highly regulated in the Empire, where it was known to be of high quality, but government taxes made it inaccessible to many. Illegal trade was rampant. The Gascon’s captain had a contact on Kessel who sold Imperial spice to him tax free in return for a share of the profits. Lahsbane was a hungry market for stable cash and drugs. Caught in a war zone, lots of people wanted some kind of escape. Spice functioned no matter how you tried to get away.  
  
The captain addressed the Weequay hologram directly, “Hondo Ohnaka, wanted in fourteen sectors, you are under arrest for murder, armed robbery of citizens, state banks, and postal stations; the theft of sacred objects, arson in a state prison, perjury, bigamy, deserting his wife and children, inciting prostitution, kidnapping, extortion, receiving stolen goods, selling stolen goods, passing counterfeit money, and contrary to the laws of the Empire you are accused of using marked cards and loaded dice…”  
  
Ohnaka rolled his beady eyes.  
  
Niner had to admit, he had to respect the brother in business for himself. Why, he was providing a service, Niner thought, that Weequay was a piece of filth.  
  
“Alright, bounty hunter, bring him over,” the captain waved dismissively and paced away from the holo-viewer.  
  
“Sir, yes, sir,” Niner’s brother acknowledged. He appeared briefly to drag the prisoner away before the hologram was switched off. Hard to see, but Niner thought his face was covered with what looked like a kind of T-visor. Niner squinted, but the figure didn’t look any clearer, then it was gone.  
  
The ship docked and the airlock banged once. The access port to the bridge slid open and Ohnaka walked in, with his arms bound behind his back at the elbows. The brother in the helmet followed, holding a rifle aimed between Ohnaka’s shoulder blades.  
  
Ohnaka looked over his shoulder at Niner’s brother and yelled rather dramatically, “You sold my hide! You won’t enjoy it, that spice! Not one grain! If there’s justice in the universe that spice will go to the to trade route taxes, every gram of it. You know who you are? Eh? Eh? You want to know whose son you are? You don’t, I do, everybody does!”  
  
Niner gasped a little.  
  
“You’re the son of a thousand fathers, all of them blood cells. And your mother….your mother, she’s…Your mother, it’s better not to talk. Because she can’t, she’s an inanimate object,” Ohnaka continued, then he turned to the captain, “Thank the Force, you’ve come to save me from this primitive life form!” Ohnaka hadn’t said that the brother was a clone, but Niner thought he was insulting the brother pretty specifically.  
  
The captain nodded slightly as if he’d just decided something and was pleased with himself. He knew, too. Niner felt his chest constrict.  
  
The captain greeted the prisoner, “Hondo Ohnaka. You have quite a history.”  
  
“One that I will be more than happy to offer an explanation for…” Ohnaka smiled.  
  
“A life of piracy and murder…” the lieutenant answered. Like most Imperials, he expressed judgmental outrage at everything.  
  
“Well, better than just ORDERING murders,” Ohnaka shrugged. “It’s a big difference. My friend knows what I’m talking about. Of course he does!” He swung his head in the direction of the brother with the blaster. “And I have a sordid past, it’s true. With many many associates in my storied career.” Ohnaka made a face that was mockingly serious, “But none of my associates have ever been uglier than Jango Fett...”  
  
The brother twirled his weapon effortlessly and hit Ohnaka in the ribs with the butt of his rifle, then returned it to aim, never breaking his stance. Ohnaka doubled over, winded. He gasped and sputtered a few times, laughing.  
  
Niner stifled laughter. The T-visor met his gaze and nodded slightly.  
  
“Of course, if you could give us intelligence on some of your…associates, the Empire might consider some leniency.” The captain looked at the brother, then back at Hondo. Then he looked at his nails.  
  
Niner realized the captain was trying to pull the old ISB double cross, thinking Ohnaka might know things about the brother. He’d try to make a deal with Ohnaka. Or just arrest them both. Double the bounty. Keep the spice. The captain probably had his eyes on a career in the Emperor’s thug force.  
  
Niner felt his cheeks and ears get hot. He wanted money, but not like that. He glared at his brother, desperately hoping to convey a warning. The brother didn’t seem to see. The air in the bridge felt closer for some reason.  
  
“But of course, I am only too eager to tell you all I know.” Ohnaka sounded downright friendly. He didn’t seem to know what the captain’s scheme would be.  
  
“Yes…well…we will discuss that. Now, bounty hunter, please submit some form of identification so that we can process payment,” the captain ordered.  
  
Imperials really knew how to suck the air out of criminal enterprise, Niner thought, but nobody would make you submit forms to get paid for a bounty, never mind printing an invoice for a spice transaction. The captain was hoping for an easy pretext to hold the brother. Niner kind of resented it that the captain thought his brother would fall for such a stupid ruse.  
  
Two Stormtroopers came trotting forward from the ranks near the airlock to point weapons at Ohnaka. Niner’s brother lowered his weapon, hanging it off of his shoulder with a strap. Niner noticed he left the safety off.  
  
The brother removed his helmet and handed it to the lieutenant. Clones shared a face, their expressions were mutually understood. Niner knew his face meant something like, ‘I’ve been doing this a long time, don’t question me.’ Then he slowly took out an id chip.  
  
When he saw the face, Niner could scarcely believe his eyes.  
  
All brothers knew who this one was, Niner thought. Evidently, his fortunes had taken a turn for the worse from the old days. At least Niner knew this brother wasn’t an idiot.  
  
The lieutenant took the chip and handed it to an R2 unit to scan it to confirm either the validity of the id, or at least the skill of the counterfeiter that made it. If it passed neither test, the crew was authorized to detain both parties. It couldn’t have been his real id, Niner knew, clones had theirs embedded in their wrists. But brothers had traded fake id cards during the war as collectibles for fun. They were more desirable if you could get something clever past the droid. The lieutenant looked suspiciously at the brother.  
  
The holo of the id appeared. His name was listed as “Bill Hootkins.” The picture was of a brother about twenty kilos heavier with their familiar male pattern baldness most brothers had by then. Niner stifled a chuckle. It was definitely not the same brother. The lieutenant looked at him cocking an eyebrow. The small droid scanned his face and confirmed identity, giving his profession as ‘laying pipe’. The droid chirped affirmatively. The lieutenant shook his head in disbelief at the droid. Recognition droid software concentrated on matching same with same, to identify people even if they changed their appearance. They were useless for detecting differences.  
  
Niner’s brother tipped his head back a bit and lowered his eyelids halfway, looking at the lieutenant, sort of daring him to say something.  
  
The lieutenant stammered, “You’re looking…better.” He looked at the id and gave a weak patronizing smile. Then he handed it back to the brother.  
  
The brother just nodded. “It’s easy. You drink a shake for breakfast, one for lunch, and then a sensible dinner.” He did not give any indication whether he was serious. “But you don’t want to know what the shakes are made of.”  
  
Niner snorted trying to keep from laughing. The brother glanced at him almost imperceptibly. Did he remember, Niner wondered.  
  
The brother watched as two Stormtroperrs carried in a spice crate. One opened it for him. He licked a finger, dipped it in to the red powder, and tasted the contents. Stormtroopers were starting to look at the transaction a bit. Not many of them had ever seen that much cash.  
  
Niner’s brother looked at the Stormtroopers, “May I please have some help loading my payment on to my ship?” The brother had asked politely, still shouldering his rifle but never turning the safety off.  
  
Niner’s brother undid Hondo’s binders and two Stormtroopers produced an Imperial set of binders and joined his wrists in the front.  
  
Ohnaka was practically yelling, “Thank you so much, Troopers. Much more comfortable. The Empire knows how to treat a person. Not like this brute.” He swung his hands in the brother’s direction. “Thank you for having mercy on an old man’s shoulders.” Hondo blathered on. He was gesturing wildly. Everyone on the bridge was looking at him.  
  
“It’s too good for the likes of you,” Niner’s brother called at Ohnaka.  
  
“I hear that’s what your wife says to you when she heads over to my house,” Hondo quipped obnoxiously.  
  
The Stormtroopers carrying the crate on to the brother’s shuttle had to kind of shrug their way through. All the Stormtroopers on board were crowding around to watch the drama. Stormtroopers were craning necks and struggling to get to the front. It was hard to see in the helmets, but they didn’t dare remove them. They had to lower their weapons to stand close together. Safeties were on. They didn’t know if they should get involved.  
  
Hondo went on. “She is, too, you know. I always thought the best you could do was to bring home a girl just like your mother. In fact, I think you can buy a whole case of empty jars for ten credits. Too bad you’re too poor to afford that.”  
  
All eyes on the bridge were on the bounty hunter and the prisoner.  
  
Niner’s brother rolled his eyes the way clones did when ignorant drunks used to yell racist abuse at them on public transportation on Coruscant. Niner suddenly wanted his brother to shoot this guy in the head. He almost yelled it.  
  
Hondo rambled on. “Oh, why the frown, don’t you know it’s just a joke? Oh, what am I talking about, you don’t get jokes, you stupid animal!”  
  
Niner’s brother gritted his teeth, “That’s enough.”  
  
Out of his peripheral vision, Niner perceived movement near the air lock. He thought he saw Stormtroopers emerging from the direction of the brother’s ship. Niner wasn’t sure why, but he was certain there were more troopers than before. He could have sworn only two went in. Four came back through the portal, seemingly in response to the drama. Niner thought he had seen the two who brought the crate in come out, but he couldn’t be sure. Stormtroopers all looked the same. The bridge felt very crowded. Niner reached under his desk for his holster. He gripped his sidearm, setting it to stun. He wasn’t sure what was about to go down, but he had to be ready to defend himself.  
  
Ohnaka continued, all eyes still on him, “But that just means you and your wife are well-matched.”  
  
Niner’s brother aimed his rifle at Ohnaka, “One more word and I’ll shoot you right between your beady eyes.”  
  
“You wouldn’t dare! The things I know you did! I bet the bounty on you is higher than for me, you traitor!” Ohnaka was hopping mad. It was quite the display.  
  
“That’s just about enough out of you!” the brother yelled. He seemed to be letting this guy get to him. But Niner knew this brother. He didn’t give more than one warning before firing. He was dragging this out deliberately.  
  
The captain looked more interested than ever. “Threatening an Imperial prisoner, that’s grounds to detain you! Troopers, arrest this bounty hunter!”  
  
“Why you sleemo…” the brother yelled at Ohnaka.  
  
Ohnaka raised his hands over his head. Niner’s brother fired his rifle, dead shot at the join in the binders. The cuffs separated, snapping off a few blue sparks. In the same swift stroke, the brother fired the gun to take off the hats of the captain and lieutenant, as well as three other officers on the bridge. All the men froze in place, the lieutenant still holding the brother's helmet. The Stormtroopers on either side of Ohnaka began to fire stun bolts at the crew, hitting the newly hatless officers. Ohnaka took the chance to drop to the ground.  
  
Niner looked around, in that instant time stood still. He hadn’t been wrong, there were more Stormtroopers. He realized they must have been sneaking out a few at a time from the shuttle. No one had seen in all the commotion. By the time the shooting started, the imposters had the real troopers surrounded with weapons aimed. They stunned all the real Stormtroopers in the backs.  
  
Niner felt a well of emotion and time advanced once more. He pulled his blaster from under his console, climbed out of the well, and stunned a number of his fellow crew members. It wasn’t a hard decision for him to make, he guessed.  
  
One or two of the bridge crew started shooting to kill, but they didn’t know one Stormtrooper from another. Four or five fell dead in the chaos.  
  
Ohnaka went over on hands and knees to where the nearest officers had fallen. He picked up one’s sidearm. “New Imperial hardware. Lovely,” he stayed close to the ground and crept along collecting dropped weapons and people’s jewelry.  
  
The lieutenant was starting to stir. Niner aimed and fired right at him, the lieutenant’s body writhed slightly from the stun bolt. He was already stunned, but Niner figured, ‘what they hey?’ Niner kicked him in the ribs once. “You like nicknames, there, Kicky?”  
  
The next few minutes were a blur for Niner. The chaos died down within seconds. Niner went back to his console and sat down. He was aware of the imposter Stormtroopers removing their helmets and binding up the bridge crew and Stormtroopers. Others secured the bridge. The dead were collected reverently. The imposters were dragging their prisoners to their knees. They removed all the helmets, picking out the five clones from the lineup, pulling them to their feet.  
  
Niner was afraid to move, still in shock. He couldn’t go back to the Navy now. He felt his breath tighten a little when he realized he wasn’t sure his brother had meant to include him. Niner worried he might be counted among the Imperials. Between army and navy brothers, there had always been a certain amount of animosity. Navy brothers didn’t wear armor and they answered to the natural born branch, not Jedi. So they were seen as weak. Outliers in their own tribe. Niner tried to remain quiet and brace for rejection.  
  
The Stormtrooper brothers were brought over to the one with the rifle back on his shoulder, safety now on. They were both in tears. The brother touched each one on the forehead with his own, greeting them. He knew the names of three of them specifically and apologized to the other two for not knowing. They each took turns hugging their brother.  
  
“The stories are true!” one brother choked.  
  
The other took the main brother’s hand and touched his forehead to the back of it, “Tegaanalur.”  
  
Niner was an old clone. He understood enough Mando’a to know what it meant. ‘Rescuer’ or some such.  
  
His brother looked uncomfortable, just as Niner knew he would. Same old Cody.  
  
Cody thumped the brother on the chest with his palm, “Pull yourself together, brother.”  
  
The brother half cackled, half sobbed and wiped his eyes. Cody turned to address his cohort. “Now…I just have one question,” he turned, “What the hell happened to Niner?”  
  
Everyone looked at Niner. He grew very nervous. Cody waved him forward and before Niner knew what he was doing, he rose from the well in which his console rested, he climbed out and stood before his brother.  
  
Cody hugged him with one arm, the other still holding his rifle strap. Then he backed up and patted Niner’s shoulder, “You look like hell, brother. I know what you’re gonna say,” Cody affected an Evan Piell accent, “‘Vat took you so long.’”  
  
Niner laughed, but his eyes were wet. Cody did remember.  
  
Years before, when Niner had served on Piell’s flagship under Captain Tarkin, Niner’s entire ship had been destroyed, and the survivors were put in the Citadel prison. Niner and Tarkin were the only crew members that made it through the escape. Cody had been part of the rescue mission that saved them.  
  
Niner looked down at the floor and shook his head slowly, “You came just when I needed you.”


End file.
